Tag Archives: geothermal

A Bland but Workable Energy Plan

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski have been working jointly on a passable energy bill. The Congressmen have also been coordinating with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to ensure the bill will not get vetoed at the President’s desk.

On infrastructure, the Energy Policy Modernization Act (the Senate version) aims to modernize the electricity grid and add cybersecurity safeguards. There are also provisions to streamline the process for natural gas export projects and maintain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The bill provides for the “responsible development of American resources”, to include hydropower, geothermal and bioenergy, as well as traditional resources. Surprisingly, the act creates a new National Park Maintenance and Revitalization Fund to fix the maintenance backlog of the nation’s public parks (the park delayed an estimated $11.5 billion worth of maintenance last year alone).

The drafters of the bill chose to avoid big button issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline, allowing the exportation of crude oil and climate change.

The inclusion of maintaining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is in direct contrast to the transportation bill being presented by the Senate, which offers to sell part of the reserve to fund the Highway Trust Fund.

This week, 11 environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council, have come out against the bill stating that several provisions in the bill could cause detrimental effects to public health and the environment. The groups seemed specifically opposed to expediting liquefied natural gas exports and mineral mining permits because they felt “a stronger vision for accelerating the development and deployment of clean energy” was needed. The House bill received less opposition from these groups since it did not include measures on hydropower and liquefied natural gas exportation.

A Bumpy Ride for Germany’s Green Energy

The aim of the German Energiewende (also known as Germany’s Energy Transition) is to decarbonize the energy supply by increasing access to renewable energy and improving energy efficiency. A key part of the Energiewende is the outright rejection of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels and the complete shutdown of nuclear facilities by 2022. The German government has also taken a stand against carbon capture and storage, calling it expensive and unsafe. The strategy focuses instead on wind, biomass (using landfill gas and agricultural waste products), hydropower, solar power, geothermal and ocean power.

So, how does Germany expect to transition to renewable energy so quickly?

  • Germany has been focusing on increasing wind power generation since the early 1990s. In 2014, onshore wind power provided 8.6 percent of the country’s power supply.
  • By 2020, Germany plans to triple the amount of energy produced by wind (both onshore and offshore).
  • Germany is aiming to have 6.5 gigawatts of installed offshore wind power by 2020.
  • Germany expects to increase citizen ownership of renewable sources, limiting the influence of large corporations, through the use of feed-in tariffs.
  • Increase “energy cooperatives” ― community-owned renewable projects, which have already garnered more than 1.2 billion euros in investment from more than 130,000 private citizens.

One of the most key impacts of Germany’s energy transition has been the democratization of energy resources. Turning traditional consumers into additional producers of energy has meant enacting generous support subsidies for renewables. This method seemed effective and by 2012 citizens and co-ops owned 47 percent of renewables, while energy suppliers controlled 12 percent and institutional and strategic investors owned 41 percent. In Freiburg, Germany, for example, citizens of the town of about 220,000 people funded a third of the investment cost for four turbines, with the rest coming from banks loans.

In 2014, the plan seemed to be on the right track and electricity from fossil fuels (including natural gas) hit a 35-year low. However, the German energy transition has hit a few bumpy spots along the way. Offshore wind has not taken off as it was supposed to and most Germans see it as a big business scheme. At the end of 2014, only 1 gigawatt of the total 6.5 gigawatts desired had been installed, with only 923 additional megawatts under construction.

The rush into renewables was also poorly timed and coincided with increased investments into traditional energy production by utility companies. The increased generation from both renewables and fossil-fuel power plants has overwhelmed demand causing prices to fall and hurt profits. Additionally, Germany had guaranteed above-market prices for newly installed renewable energy, to incentivize investment. The surge of renewables on the market are subsidized directly by a surcharge on customers, which increases in parallel with the addition of more renewable kilowatt hours. In the end, utilities have been forced to return to coal-powered plants due to the squeeze on profits.

Lauren Aragon is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis

Volcanos as a Source of Renewable Energy

Harnessing the power of lava for energy sounds like a herculean task, but a group of researchers in Iceland think they are up to the challenge. Iceland ― which already fills a quarter of its electricity needs with geothermal energy ― is looking to expand its geothermal energy production with the Iceland Deep Drilling Project.

Geothermal energy, obtained by tapping into and converting underground reservoirs of heat into energy, is touted by the U.S. government for its availability, low emissions, and long-term sustainability.

Given the technological advancements coming up and Iceland’s success, why does geothermal energy only account for 0.41% of U.S. electricity production?

The answer is simple: costs. The start-up costs for geothermal energy are extremely high.  To get a geothermal energy plant off the ground in the U.S. costs a minimum of $2500 per installed kilowatt. In comparison, construction costs for a coal-fired power plant range between $1,000 and $1,500 per installed kilowatt, and construction costs for a gas-fired power plant range from $400 – $800 per kilowatt.

The high start-up costs are not just limited to the U.S. The exploratory borehole for the Iceland Deep Drilling Project cost a minimum of $22 million. The Geothermal Energy Association estimates that the average cost of a 20-megawatt geothermal power plant stands around $30 million.

Until renewable energy sources ― and geothermal energy in particular ― can be cost efficient without large government subsidies, they will remain a drop in the bucket for U.S. energy production.